Left 4 Dead has had an unyielding grip on the co-op shooter genre for over 15 years, and at this point, I’m not sure anything will be able to knock it from its pedestal. Plenty of Left 4 Dead-likes have come and gone over the years, including one made by L4D creators Turtle Rock Studios, and all have failed to move the genre forward or elevate it beyond the standard set by the original Hell, forget surpassing it, there hasn’t been a co-op shooter that could evenlive upto L4D in all those years. EvilVEvil is the latest game to play in Left 4 Dead’s sandbox, and just like all the rest, it fails to meet the standard set by Valve’s classic 2008 horde shooter.
It might not be fair to compare every multiplayer PvE shooter to Left 4 Dead. There are plenty of things EvilVEvil does to set itself apart, and I’d like to live in a world where two games can share a genre without having to compete, especially when one of those games is old enough to be the other’s father. But Left 4 Dead is uniquely positioned in the way that classic games in other genres are not. If you love co-op shooters, you’re able to’t really play one without comparing it to Left 4 Dead. The game is just too iconic, too impeccably designed, too timeless, and too easily accessible. There’s a reason Left 4 Dead 2 is holding steady at 30,000 concurrent players on Steam even all the years later. If you want to make a co-op shooter it needs to be at least as good as Left 4 Dead, and EvilVEvil is not.
That’s not to say there’s no fun to be had. EvilVEvil’s cast of vampire heroes are highly mobile killing machines that can rip through a pack of a hundred cyber-demons with style. The comic-inspired art style gives the game’s techno-gothic aesthetic a unique flair, and the currency-based progression system gives you the satisfaction of watching numbers go up after each bite-sized mission, and Ilovewhen numbers go up.
But the long shadow of Left 4 Dead looms over EvilVEvil at every turn. Its hordes of brain-dead enemies will make you think about how oppressive the mobs in L4D can be when you fall out of position, and how clever the special infected are. Its linear levels that have you fight your way from point A to B will make you yearn for L4D’s exceptional pacing that’s broken up with safe rooms, puzzles, and high-pressure stand-your-ground moments. The forgettable guns and awkward melee will make you long for the personality of L4D’s arsenal
EvilVEvil doesn’t have fun character interactions and funny voice lines to make its over the top world feel grounded the way Left 4 Dead does. It doesn’t have a director that dynamically influences the battlefield in response to your playstyle and behavior. It’s a different game from Left 4 Dead in so many ways, but it can’t avoid feeling like a worse one.
It doesn’t help that many of the things it does to differentiate itself from L4D also feel like outdated design choices. EvilVEvil is a hero shooter with a trio of characters that all have their own ability kits. In games like Apex Legends and Overwatch, that means characters with a suite of active and passive abilities that give each of them a unique feel in playstyle. The only thing that separates the characters in EvilVEvil is two abilities - a mobility move like a leap or teleport, and a ranged damage move. There’s no passives, no ultimates, and not much else to separate the characters from each other until you get deep into their individual progression tracks and heavily customize their artifacts, weapons, and mods.
To get to that point, you have to suffer through hours of incremental stat increases that have no measurable impact on how you actually play the game. This is one of the cardinal sins of any RPG-adjacent game and another reason EvilVEvil feels so outdated. Almost every upgrade is some kind of percentage-based stat increase. Three percent increase to resistance for three seconds after feeding, ten percent experience bonus for ability kills, and the most egregious example I’ve ever seen: five percent faster recoil recovery. I’m a sicko for numbers, but this type of progression does absolutely nothing for me.
Other genres have room for games that refuse to push the envelope, that sit on the fence and milk nostalgia without offering anything new or innovative, but I don’t think co-op shooters are one of them. With such an active modding community and an already great foundation, there’s no reason not to just play Left 4 Dead 2 if you’re looking for this kind of experience. I had hoped the vampire flavor would carry EvilVEvil further than it does, but there isn’t enough substance to the story, characters, or gameplay to make this one more than a pale imitation of what’s come before.
